Paul Starkey is a British scholar and translator of Arabic literature

Arabic literature

Arabic literature is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and implies politeness, culture and enrichment....

. He received his doctorate from Oxford University; the subject of his dissertation was the works of the Egyptian

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 writer Tawfiq Hakim. He is currently the head of the Arabic department at the University of Durham. He is also co-director of the Centre for Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW), a collaborative project by the Universities of Edinburgh, Durham and Manchester.

Starkey is the author of Modern Arabic Literature (2006), a survey of the field. He has also edited a number of books, contributed book chapters, and written essays, scholarly articles and monographs. He is a specialist on the Sixties Generation of Egyptian writers, in particular Sonallah Ibrahim

Sonallah Ibrahim

Son'allah Ibrahim is an Egyptian novelist and short story writer and one of the "Sixties Generation" who is known for his leftist and nationalist views which are expressed rather directly in his work...

 and Edwar al-Kharrat

Edwar al-Kharrat

Edwar al-Kharrat is an Egyptian novelist, writer and critic. He was born in Alexandria to a Coptic Christian family. He studied law at Alexandria University and worked briefly in banking and insurance. He was also actively engaged in left-wing politics and spent two years in jail from 1948–50...

.

Starkey has translated several contemporary Arabic novels, including works by Edwar al-Kharrat and Mansoura Ez-Eldin

Mansoura Ez-Eldin

Mansoura Ez-Eldin is an Egyptian novelist and journalist. Mansoura Ez Eldin was born in Delta Egypt in 1976....

. His translations have been published in Banipal

Banipal

Banipal is an independent literary magazine dedicated to the promotion of contemporary Arab literature through translations in English. It was founded in London in 1998 by Margaret Obank and Samuel Shimon. The magazine is published three times a year...

magazine. He has also served on the judging panel of the Arabic Booker Prize.

As editor

• Egypt Through the Eyes of Travellers, 2002 (co-edited with Nadia El Kholy)
• Interpreting the Orient: Travellers in Egypt and the Near East, vol 2, 2001 (with Janet Starkey)
• Unfolding the Orient: Travellers in Egypt and the Near East, 2001 (with Janet Starkey)
• Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature (two volumes), 1998 (with Julie Scott Meisami)
• Travellers in Egypt, 1998 (with Janet Starkey)

As translator

• Dear Mr Kawabata by Rachid al-Daif
• Maryam's Maze by Mansoura Ez-Eldin
• Shumaisi by Turki Al-Hamad
  Turki al-Hamad
  Turki al-Hamad is a Saudi-Arabian political analyst, journalist, and novelist, best known for his trilogy about the coming-of-age of Hisham al-Abir, a Saudi Arabian teenager, the first installment of which, Adama, was published in 1998...
  
  
• Stones of Bobello by Edwar Al-Kharrat
• We Are All Equally Far from Love by Adania Shibli